Instead of including this season’s most hotly anticipated titles within their new game bundle, NVIDIA is instead offering up credits for in-game F2P purchases. 

In an effort to increase sales of their graphics cards, both AMD and NVIDIA have begun offering generous game bundles alongside their cards.  The latest salvo in this protracted battle was launched by AMD with the newest iteration of the Never Settle bundle.

NVIDIA has taken a decidedly different approach which should come as no surprise since AMD’s program has shanghaied the rights to most major game releases for the next few months.  Instead of including free games, they’ve decided to include in-game credits for purchasing items in some of today’s hottest Free to Play games.

Not only will this allow gamers to get a leg up on the competition but it also opens up a massive new market which houses several million users.  According to NVIDIA, many current and upcoming F2P titles like Hawken and PlanetSide 2 will incorporate next generation graphics and features.  We’ve already seen how the developers of Hawken have leveraged PhysX for some stunning in-game effects.

This current promotion is broken into two tiers, each encompassing a different segment of graphics cards.  The entry level GPUs like the GTX 650 and GTX 650 Ti will receive a $25 in-game credit for World of Tanks, Hawken and PlanetSide 2 while purchasing a GTX 660 Ti or higher will grant access to $50 worth of credits from each of those titles.

While the Free to Play movement is indeed expanding at a rapid pace, we’re not quite sure this will bring NVIDIA onto a level playing field against AMD in terms of overall added value.  Granted, these promotions will entice people to crawl onto the F2P bandwagon and every one of the titles is popular in its own right but there’s still nothing like the feeling of getting free A-list games that include multiplayer AND single player components.